Rail Service

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT RAIL SERVICE - PAGE 4

Put light rail service where people want it and can reach it conveniently, and they will use it. That's the plain message of the most recent ridership survey on the Central Light Rail Line. Service was extended from downtown almost to Glen Burnie last June, and ridership more than doubled. In fact, the 18,000 daily riders represent more than half the number of riders anticipated by 2010 for the already completed base system.It's been easy for critics to carp at the use of the system, not yet two years old. Ridership built up slowly, and empty cars were frequent sights, particularly during non-peak hours.

ONCE UPON a time, newspaper reporters waited patiently in drafty stations to see and record who was coming and who was going on the railroad's crack trains. It was considered legitimate news during the belle epoque of rail travel that celebrated in addition to flesh and fame, steam, steel and speed.The names of the fast limiteds -- the Capitol Limited, the Black Diamond, the Seminole, the Liberty Limited, the State of Maine, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Royal Blue -- managed to etch themselves into the psyche and fabric of American life.

I was not on the "hell train" that stalled outside Washington this week, but as one who has ridden the state-run transportation system since the day it took over from the old Baltimore Transit Co., I have a few tart observations. In those decades, I watched nearly all my peers abandon city public transit. The line that I began riding in 1959, which once had buses about every 15 minutes in the morning, has been slashed to seven morning trips a day. There is no weekend service. The on-time reliability of Baltimore's buses is shaky, although I have noticed some improvement in the past few months.

From an ambitious plan to more than double rail service in the Baltimore region over the next 40 years, two major projects have emerged as priorities. An advisory committee, which approved the overall plan yesterday, urged the state to move forward with an east-west rail line between Fells Point and the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn. In addition, it recommended an extension of the current subway system, taking it north from Johns Hopkins Hospital to Morgan State University.

WASHINGTON - The House voted yesterday to authorize $60 million in federal funding to study a way around a 135-year-old rail tunnel that imposes speed and height restrictions on modern passenger and freight trains as they pass through Baltimore. Lawmakers approved the money as part of a $14.9 billion bill to reauthorize Amtrak for the next five years. The 311-104 vote far exceeded the two-thirds necessary to override a veto threatened by the White House, which said the bill lacked "basic measures" to hold the national passenger rail service accountable for its spending.

With little left but elbow room in the packed Aberdeen railroad depot, city residents, train buffs and state officials officially celebrated the reopening of Aberdeen's historic train station Sunday.All but hidden behind Aberdeen's pedestrian and vehicle overpass at U.S. 40 and East Bel Air Avenue, the old station had been vandalized and burned. It seemed forgotten, even by conductors who knew it only as a blur they passed on their way to other stops.With little left to work with but the old station's frame and its wide wooden benches, workers gave it a new roof, windows and ticket office.

A three-alarm fire burned out a vacant building in downtown Baltimore this morning, slowing rush-hour traffic and halting service on the light rail line between the North Avenue and Westport stops.The fire started before 5:45 a.m. in an abandoned building, formerly known as the Backstage Cafe & Cafeteria, in the 200 block of W. Clay St., fire officials said. It quickly went to three alarms, bringing 30 fire engines and nearly 100 firefighters to the scene, the officials said.The building is around the corner from Howard Street and the light rail's tracks.

The Northeast may be home to the most successful passenger rail system in the U.S., but it pales in comparison to its brethren in Europe and Japan. With highways and airports in the region likely to have capacity issues and greenhouse gas emissions an alarming problem for a nation that is so car-dependent, the need to upgrade the Northeast corridor is clear enough. But before U.S. travelers can contemplate futuristic 300 mile per hour magnetic levitation trains or even the 150-200 mph trains found elsewhere, Amtrak and commuter rail systems between Maryland and Maine need something more basic: better reliability and capacity.

THE EYES of the nation recently were once again focused on Baltimore's - and the nation's - most serious transportation issue: our railroad tunnels. This problem has been part of the public debate for more than half a century. The trouble this time was with the CSX system's Howard Street Tunnel from Camden Yards to Mount Royal Station, but equally serious problems affect the Amtrak and Norfolk Southern systems' series of tunnels into Baltimore for both passenger and freight services. On September 20, 1976, The Sun headlined, "Derailment causes rerouting of 52 trains; East Coast hurt."